Couldn't the wrong sort of living turn anyone mean? I remembered very well that one day back in Yoroido, a boy pushed me into a thorn bush near the pond. By the time I clawed my way out I was mad enough to bite through wood. If a few minutes of suffering could make me so angry, what would years of it do? Even stone can be worn down with enough rain.

After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom.

My tears simply broke through the fragile wallthat had held them, and with a terrible feeling of shame, I laid my head upon the table and let them drain out of me.

The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.

I studied Japanese language and culture in college and graduate school, and afterward went to work in Tokyo, where I met a young man whose father was a famous businessman and whose mother was a geisha. He and I never discussed his parentage, which was an open secret, but it fascinated me.

Here's the thing: this eel spends its entire life trying to find a home, and what do you think women have inside them? Caves, where the eels like to live...when they find a cave they like, the wriggle around inside it for a while to be sure that...well, to be sure it's a nice cave, I suppose. And when they've made up their minds that it's comfortable, they mark the cave as their territory...by spitting.

My feelings of disgust had been so loud within me, they’d nearly drowned out everything else.